Tempted by Darkness

by Lillian Sable

  Possible explanations ran through my mind. Adonis hired an actor to pretend to be a character from my play as a practical joke. Cleo would have jumped on that idea like good dick if he brought her in on it.

  For all I knew, they’d been planning this for weeks. Get me here and have everyone hide after the lights go out, so I looked like a mental patient having a freak-out. Pay off the staff of the Taphouse, and now everyone was part of the hilarious trick. It was like a surprise party, only terribly cruel.

  “Okay, you guys can come out now,” I called to the empty taproom, even as my heart hammered in my chest. “This is hilarious and all, but it’s getting more pathetic by the second.”

  Hades watched me with an expression that almost looked like sympathy, but there was a malicious gleam in his eyes.

  “You poor, precious thing.” He snapped a finger, and my shift dress was instantly transformed.

  Now, I was wearing a gown identical to the one that Adonis found in the costume closet, so close that it could be the exact same, one and I wouldn’t know the difference.

  My fingers shook as I touched the fine beading at my waist. “How—”

  “You know. Because you believe in gods and their power.” It wasn’t a question. He tilted his head to the side, staring at me as if memorizing the curve of my chin and the sharp angle of my brow. “You’ve always believed, even when the whole world called you mad.”

  This had to be a hallucination, the most compelling one that I’d ever experienced. Even slashing my hand with a steak knife wasn’t enough to bring me out if it.

  For the first time, I had some sympathy for all the mental health professionals who worked with me over the years. This must be what it felt like to talk to someone without even the smallest grip on reality. “This isn’t real. I’ve either gone completely crazy or . . .”

  I trailed off because putting it into words was simply too much.

  “Nothing is more real than the precious blood dripping from your hand. There is much I’d offer you for a taste of it.”

  I stumbled back, running hard into the table behind me. More pain that should bring me back to myself, but didn’t. Even though I’d imagined him exactly this way, the potent sexuality still overwhelmed me when he stood this close.

  If this was all a dream, then soon I’d wake up, and no harm would have been done. If not, there wasn’t any time to waste on questioning this devastating new reality.

  My mouth was dry, but I forced myself to speak. “What do you want from me?”

  It was the wrong question to ask. His smile widened to reveal teeth just a touch too sharp to be human. “To own you. Come with me, and everything I have will be yours.”

  I felt a yearning so deep that it nearly doubled me over. From the seductive look he cast over my body, he sensed it in me.

  But even if all of this existed entirely in my head, I knew better than to say yes.

  Steeling my resolve, I glared at him. “I won’t go with you willingly. Don’t expect me to fall for your tricks.”

  His head tilted to one side, watching me with eyes that were almost too large for his face and tipped on the sides like a cat. Or an alien. Because I couldn’t stop the fanciful ideas from popping into my head at the worst times, I wondered if our conception of little green aliens was influenced by the gods. Perhaps some prehistorical human caught sight of a god and underestimated just how foreign its origins might be.

  Except, none of this was real. I had to keep reminding myself of that until I believed it.

  He seemed amused as he studied me like he could tell precisely what I was thinking. “It is fascinating to me that you think you have a choice.”

  “In the story, Hades stole girls away only when they’ve asked for it. Which I didn’t. And won’t ever.” I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling smug. Even the sexiest hallucinations could be outsmarted.

  “I had hoped it would be you to say the words,” he acknowledged with a small nod, that infuriating smile still playing at his lips. “But you aren’t the only pretty little human who knows the right words to invoke my presence. And you have no one but yourself to blame for that.”

  The right words.

  I stared at him, the slowly growing horror apparent on my face.

  “Those who call his name in the liminal space, between what was and what will be, and make their demands become the god of the underworld’s to take.” He repeated words from my play verbatim as if they were a magical spell.

  And perhaps they were.

  I shook the thought away with an effort. “Even if the Underworld is real, which it’s totally not according to every psychiatrist I’ve ever met. Only Cleo said the words, and she didn’t even mean them.”

  “Intent has nothing to do with it,” he chided. Long pale fingers stroked his lips, and the movement was hypnotizing. “I am compelled to take what is mine. Both of them.”

  My gaze snapped back to his mercurial eyes. “What do you mean by both?”

  “The boy is mine to take as well.”

  “Only Cleo said the words!”

  “She said us. I chose to interpret that as I pleased.”

  A phantom hand squeezed my heart, making it impossible to breathe. “You can’t have him.”

  Hades smirked, clearly not missing that I said him and not them. “You can’t stop me.”

  “No—”

  “But perhaps we can make some sort of bargain.”

  Humans should never bargain with the gods. That rule was in every story, some warning in every version, from the British Isles to Timbuktu.

  Because the gods didn’t bargain unless they knew they had the upper hand. Even though they couldn’t lie, the truth could be stretched and warped so far that it was nearly indistinguishable from an actual falsehood.

  A god deal never worked out well for the human involved.

  But he had taken Adonis. And I didn’t want Cleo getting the life sucked out of her, no matter how much she sometimes annoyed me. “What sort of deal?”

  “The only kind that matters. One in which lives are on the line.” His gaze traveled down my body, lingering at the low-cut neck of my dress then dipping to the curve of my waist. “And bodies. And souls. I am king of the underworld and I deal in the only currency that matters. The only things which truly have any value.”

  I glared into his eyes. “Explain.”

  “Come to the underworld and fight through the challenges I have created to reach your friends. If you succeed in time, then all of you will be returned to this drab little world with no lasting harm done to you.”

  Hades was no covetous dragon hoarding gold in its mountain cave. He dealt in a very different kind of currency.

  Blood. Bone. Flesh. Life.

  I knew that because I was the one who came up with it.

  “Speak plainly. No flowery language or innuendo. What will you get if I fail?”

  “You,” he said, so plainly that it was still a shock even though I knew something like it was coming. “All of you. Without resistance or restraint.”

  “Not even a safe word? The local BDSM club would have something to say about that.”

  I couldn’t believe I just made that joke. My face was already heating with what I knew was a fiery red blush. He merely smirked.

  “Do we have a deal?”

  “Will you tell me what you want with me? You could simply just take them and be done with it.” I told myself it was curiosity that compelled me to ask and not pride. It only made sense for me to be at the center of the fantasy that I had created. And perhaps he simply wanted to take as many of us as he could get his hands on.

  “Perhaps. If the mood strikes. But no, not now. Now you haven’t the time.” He held his hand out flat, hovering over my upper chest where the cut of the dress left an expanse of skin bare. Even though he didn’t touch me, heat grew on my flesh until it felt near to burning.

  I let out a cry of pain, and he pulled away. When I looked down, the same lariat necklac
e that Adonis had tried to get me to wear in the costume room was around my neck.

  That was how I knew this had to be a product of my overactive imagination. Too much of the real world had mixed in with the fantasy. My fractured mind was never good at telling the difference between what I remembered and what I’d only imagined.

  Uncut stones in colors ranging from the lightest pink to deepest purple and brightest yellow to forest green were suspended on the chain that trailed down my chest, reaching nearly to my waist. As I watched, they all became transparent, as if the colors had only been a trick of the light. When I touched the highest one, it was cold against my fingers.

  “Each stone represents an hour of time in your world. Watches and clocks will be of no use to you in the underworld. Time moves . . . differently.” He gestured to the stone under my fingers, which had already begun to darken in color again as I watched. “Their color will brighten with each passing moment. By the time all the color has returned to the last stone, you must have reached the throne at the center of my realm. Otherwise, you will be trapped there forever.”

  I didn’t need to be told that forever in the underworld would feel significantly longer than the average human lifetime.

  Thirteen stones for thirteen hours. Thirteen hours. It took longer than that to get across L.A. County during rush hour.

  My hand fell to my side. “That doesn’t sound fair.”

  “It isn’t, and it never will be.” He inclined his head in a nod of acknowledgment, but anticipation flashed in the crystalline depths of his eyes. “Do you agree to our bargain?”

  As if I had any choice in the matter at all. “Fine.”

  His smile was feral. “You have to say it.”

  “I agree with your deal. If I can cross your realm before thirteen hours are up, then I go home with my friends. If I fail, you keep all of us.”

  The ground shifted under my feet, even though nothing had moved. It was as if the world had taken in a giant breath of anticipation and was waiting to blow it out. Nothing visibly changed, but I knew something fundamental, like the very fabric of the universe, had altered.

  It was so easy for me to fall under the spell of my imaginings.

  The triumphant look on his face made it clear that Hades considered the game already won. I wanted to slap the smugness off his face but consoled myself with the determination to meet his challenge and crush it.

  Thirteen hours? I’d do it in half that time.

  Although, I was smart enough not to say that out loud. That was another rule of dealing with the gods. If you gave them politeness, then they would probably give it back. Give them something else, and they’d return it to you a thousandfold.

  Hades continued to study my face. “You make it sound so easy.”

  I’d never seen irises that were truly silver in color before now. His eyes clearly changed from one shade to another, depending on some unknowable whim. Now they were illuminated with anticipation. That gaze like liquid moonlight bored into me as if he could sense my bravado and wanted to crush it under his boot.

  I raised my chin. “You issued a challenge, and I’m meeting it. What more could you possibly want from me?”

  “Such an insolent girl.” He slid back a step, so the path in front of me was clear. His arm swung gracefully wide as he gestured for the door. “Step forward and meet your destiny.”

  I couldn’t hold back a scoff. “You sound like the cut scene at the beginning of a video game.”

  It was impossible to know if he got the joke, but his eyes narrowed as he regarded me, if just from my tone alone. “You should think of your words as tally marks in a ledger. When you become mine, I will collect my due. Consider this your only warning.”

  A shiver worked down my spine as I momentarily contemplated precisely what he meant by collecting his due.

  I want all of you, without resistance or restraint.

  I should be afraid, and I was, but another and even less welcome sensation wormed its way through my insides. “I won’t apologize to you, not after what you’ve done.”

  He only smiled as I stepped past him and went to the door of the bar. Tension sang through my body as I passed, but he made no move to touch me. I couldn’t decide if I was disappointed or relieved.

  At the threshold, I looked back to see that he had moved to the table that had been behind me. I’d set the handkerchief he gave me on the wooden surface and left it there when the bleeding stopped. My hand ached, a reminder of the blood I’d spilled even though I’d forgotten about the wound until seeing the makeshift bandage reminded me.

  Hades picked up the bloodstained square of linen and brought it to his lips. I only realized too late that I should never have put it down. Pieces of yourself, like your name, your dreams, and most definitely your blood, could be used to hold power over you.

  I’d already made my first mistake, and we hadn’t even begun.

  Chapter Five

  I expected to walk out the door of the Taphouse and into fantastical darkness, but that wasn’t what happened.

  Instead, I found myself overlooking the Los Angeles skyline as the wind whipped around me, catching in the train of my dress and chilling my skin. The starless sky was dark overhead, but it was impossible to mistake where we were.

  This was not some domain of infinite mystery. Hades hadn’t magicked me across time and space into another world. We hadn’t even left Los Angeles, save for the fact that we were one thousand feet above the ground.

  I was on the roof of Wilshire Grand Center, which also happened to be the tallest damn building in the city.

  Hades appeared next to me as I looked down and then swallowed a scream. His expression was perfectly neutral, so he had to be unsurprised we were here.

  “The entrance to the underworld awaits you.”

  “Where?” I snapped, thoroughly sick of his shit. This did not bode well for the next twelve hours and fifty-eight minutes. “Off the side of the building?”

  His smile was my only answer.

  I looked nervously at the edge, lit by the Los Angeles skyline. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am. Always.”

  That felt like a warning, but it was impossible to know for what. He was as inexplicable as he was beautiful, which seemed to be entirely the point. “You just magicked my friends away. Why can’t you do the same thing for me?”

  He made an annoyed sound. “This is no simple thing. You wish to enter another realm by choice. That requires a sacrifice.”

  By choice was a stretch even with the loosest definition. “Throwing myself off a seventy-story building isn’t sacrifice, it’s certain death.”

  “You must offer up your fear, of death and loss, or anything else that tethers you to this world. All of these are things you must leave behind to have any hope of walking the path laid out before you.”

  “And if I die?”

  He shrugged. “I rule the realm of the dead. You’ll find your way there eventually.”

  Oh, fuck that. “A realistic assessment of the dangers inherent to a particular action isn’t the same as fear. Just because I don’t want to die doesn’t mean I’m afraid.”

  I looked for a door that had to be used to access the roof but didn’t see one. That was likely because no one was ever meant to come up here. I wouldn’t be able to get down again unless he decided to take me there in whatever way he’d brought me up here in the first place.

  Not fucking likely.

  “Are you already admitting defeat?” he asked, voice like music on the wind. “Even I thought you would make it further than your first challenge. My victory has always been assured, but I am a bit disappointed it happened so quickly.”

  His arrogance was absolute. But that was also how I’d always imagined him.

  Everything I wanted to say and didn’t was a debt I accrued toward the future. Each time I swallowed my voice, it made it harder to stay quiet the next time. Eventually, I’d lose the ability to hold my tongue and suffe
r for it when I gave Hades the verbal lashing he deserved.

  Looking down at the dark streets below, I fought off a wave of dizziness. I could already see the headlines now. Suicidal girl jumps from L.A.’s tallest building in an epic display of selfishness. It was late enough in the night that at least there wasn’t anyone down there to break my fall and take out with me. I stepped closer to the edge and stared down at the dizzying heights. There was no doubt that I gaped at the face of my own death.

  The mind could be a powerful thing. During my last hospital stay, there were at least three different men with paranoid schizophrenia who believed they were Jesus. Not to mention the woman who convinced herself she was in labor after being constipated for a few weeks, then proudly brought the results of her efforts bundled up in a blanket to the nurse’s station.

  Maybe I hallucinated Hades and then somehow made my way up here like a true lunatic. Everything but the fall could be fantasy.

  Not that it would matter, because I’d be dead.

  “You’re a fucking monster,” I spat, anger finally boiling over like I inevitably knew it would from the moment Hades had appeared. Just looking at him made me feel capable of murder. “If this is some joke and you’re messing with my mind, I hope you’re still laughing while you rot in a jail cell.”

  A malicious smile twisted his lips. “Would it be easier if I pushed you? Consider it a favor, the first of many that you will beg from me before we’re finished. I won’t even ask for anything in return. This time.”

  I backed away from him as he took a menacing step forward, which brought me that much closer to the edge. “Don’t touch me.”

  “I cannot until you ask it of me. Or beg.” He held up the handkerchief, my blood staining part of it a dull red. “For now, I have only your blood because you’ve gifted it to me. The rest will come in time.”

  A shiver worked over me, of fear and dark desire. My body was outside of my conscious control, reacting in ways that made no sense to my mind. “Just stay back.”